Laser Phase and Frequency Stabilization Using Atomic Coherence
Abstract
We present a novel and simple method of stabilizing the laser phase and frequency by polarization spectroscopy of an atomic vapor. In analogy to the Pound-Drever-Hall method, which uses a cavity as a memory of the laser phase, this method uses atomic coherence (dipole oscillations) as a phase memory of the transmitting laser field. A preliminary experiment using a distributed feedback laser diode and a rubidium vapor cell demonstrates a shot-noise-limited laser linewidth reduction (from 2 MHz to 20 kHz). This method would improve the performance of gas-cell-based optical atomic clocks and magnetometers and facilitate laser-cooling experiments using narrow transitions.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1201.1985,
title = {Laser Phase and Frequency Stabilization Using Atomic Coherence},
author = {Yoshio Torii and Hideyasu Tashiro and Nozomi Ohtsubo and Takatoshi Aoki},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1201.1985},
year = {2012}
}
Comments
7 pages, 6 figures, appendix on the derivation of Eq.(3) (transfer function for a polarization-spectroscopy-based frequency discriminator) has been added